{"id":2510,"date":"2011-04-01T12:13:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T18:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2510"},"modified":"2011-04-04T14:10:48","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T20:10:48","slug":"lovecrafts-magick-realism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2510","title":{"rendered":"Lovecraft&#8217;s Magick Realism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>H.P. Lovecraft claimed to be a total materialist, so how did his stories become so involved with the realms of the esoteric and magical?<\/p>\n<p>Eric Davis, in an essay titled &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailygrail.com\/Guest-Articles\/2011\/3\/Calling-Cthulhu\">Calling Cthulhu<\/a>,&#8221; writes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This phenomenon is made all the more intriguing by the fact that  Lovecraft himself was a \u201cmechanistic materialist\u201d philosophically  opposed to spirituality and magic of any kind. Accounting for this  discrepancy is only one of many curious problems raised by the apparent  power of Lovecraftian magic. Why and how do these pulp visions \u201cwork\u201d?  What constitutes the \u201cauthentic\u201d occult? How does magic relate to the  tension between fact and fable? As I hope to show, Lovecraftian magic is  not a pop hallucination but an imaginative and coherent \u201creading\u201d set  in motion by the dynamics of Lovecraft\u2019s own texts, a set of thematic,  stylistic, and intertextual strategies that constitute what I call  Lovecraft\u2019s Magick Realism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Speaking of new Lovecraftian visions, I finally saw <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0478988\/\">The Call of Cthulhu<\/a>,<\/em> a retro-silent movie released in 2005.\u00a0 The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cthulhulives.org\/\">more, much more, unspeakably more<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Lovecraft cult has even reached the shooting sports: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/elmoiscariot.blogspot.com\/2011\/03\/bullets-over-arkham.html\">Bullets over Arkham<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>H.P. Lovecraft claimed to be a total materialist, so how did his stories become so involved with the realms of the esoteric and magical? Eric Davis, in an essay titled &#8220;Calling Cthulhu,&#8221; writes, This phenomenon is made all the more intriguing by the fact that Lovecraft himself was a \u201cmechanistic materialist\u201d philosophically opposed to spirituality [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[72,12],"class_list":["post-2510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-magick","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-Eu","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9439,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9439","url_meta":{"origin":2510,"position":0},"title":"Salem, Arkham, and H. P. Lovecraft","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"What Bourbon Street is to New Orleans' French Quarter, Essex Street is to Salem, Mass. When it's party time (October), this is where the party happens. Otherwise, it is the chief tourist-commercial street, whether you want the Peabody Essex Museum, Christian Day's witch shop,\u00a0or The Witch House, which was actually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Massachusetts\"","block_context":{"text":"Massachusetts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=massachusetts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/essex-st-west-vertical.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1596,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1596","url_meta":{"origin":2510,"position":1},"title":"More Field Work from Miskatonic University","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It began with the unprecedented Vermont floods of 1927 . . .and a visiting scholar's investigation. Check the blog and trailer of a noir-ish movie in progress based on H.P. Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness. Very well done! Is Lovecraft the \"shadow\" of Zecharia Sitchin? (Via Odious and Peculiar)","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2853,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2853","url_meta":{"origin":2510,"position":2},"title":"Hoodoo You Read?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hoodoo & Conjure Quarterly is a new journal on Southern magic and folklore, and you can buy it on Amazon.com (follow link above). Contents of the first issue: Denise Alvarado: \"The Origin of the Root,\" \"Dirt Dauber Nests,\" \"Conjure Artist profile: The Georgia Mojo Man,\" \"A Goetic Ritual: Magickal Doll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/hoodoo-241x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":262,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=262","url_meta":{"origin":2510,"position":3},"title":"Magic noir Back to my\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 15, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Magic noir Back to my ongoing series on literary and cinematic paganism: over the weekend M. and I watched Cast a Deadly Spell (HBO, 1991), which attempts to blend 1940s-style film noir with magic. In fact, the movie begins with the statement, \"The year is 1948. Everybody uses magic.\" Everyone,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4515,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4515","url_meta":{"origin":2510,"position":4},"title":"&#8220;Magic Shows&#8221; at Lapham&#8217;s Quarterly","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Invocatio: Check the Summer 2012 issue of the online magazine Lapham's Quarterly for an issue devoted to magic, small-w witchcraft, wonder-working, spiritualism, and carnivores versus vegetarians. Then go back to Invocatio for more news on the study of Western esotericism.","rel":"","context":"In \"esotericism\"","block_context":{"text":"esotericism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=esotericism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8678,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8678","url_meta":{"origin":2510,"position":5},"title":"Large-Group Ritual: Magic, Worship, or &#8220;Just What We Do&#8221;?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"A friend in Poland sent a link to this music video, adding that it looks a lot like the Midsummer celebration in his village but needs the volunteer firefighters, more kielbasa, and more vodka, except, \"Our river\u2019s a fair bit wider, too.\" He describes the St. Nicholas Orchestra as \"Pagan-friendly,\"\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2510"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2512,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510\/revisions\/2512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}